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Chris McCann

Welcome to my personal page 👋 My name is Chris McCann and I’m a venture capitalist living in the SF Bay Area.

Links

Race Capital, Twitter, LinkedIn, Photography

Work

I’m a partner and co-founder of Race Capital, a seed-stage venture capital firm in Palo Alto.

Race Capital leads early financings, typically writing first checks of $1M–$6M. We’ve been seed investors in Databricks, Solana, Groq, GoodNotes, Vectara, ClerkChat, AirMDR, Opsin, and many other technical founders.

We focus on enterprise infrastructure, including:

  • Data infrastructure

  • Developer tools

  • Open source software

  • AI/ML infrastructure

  • Transaction and payment systems

  • Security and privacy

  • Automation and observability

We back founders at the earliest stage where we can have the most impact. Our approach is hands-on: helping with strategy, distribution, go-to-market, customer introductions, hiring, and company building.

If you’re building an early-stage infrastructure company, I’d love to connect 📩: chris@race.capital

Art

I started photography in 2010 and was named National Geographic Photographer of the Year in 2016, which led to exhibitions, commissions, and continued creative work today.

Previous Work

  • Greylock Partners: I founded and ran the community program at Greylock which included all of our operational centric communities (product, growth, design, security, infrastructure engineering, etc.) and emerging market sectors (VR, AI, Crypto, Robotics, eSports, etc.).

  • StartupDigest: Co-founder. One of the first curated tech newsletters, reaching 1M+ subscribers across 550 cities. Acquired by TechStars in 2012.

  • Thiel Fellowship & StartX: Early advisor and mentor during their first cohorts.